Posts tagged ‘community organizing’

On one hand, health is a right and it should be available to us all. This is the basis from which most healers practice. It’s even recognized in the UN Declaration on Human Rights. The World Health Organization Constitution “enshrines the highest attainable standard of health as a fundamental right of every human being.” Health is attainable and an inalienable right. We empower people to take charge of their own health.

But health privilege also exists. It lives in unexamined notions of health, disease, and shapes the meaning of these experiences. Much like racial, gender, or socioeconomic privilege, health privilege shames the individual for being ill, attributing illness to New Age judgements of spiritual impotency, or impure thoughts/actions. It rears its head when someone asks you if you’re “still taking those crazy medications?!” or tells you that daily consumption of bentonite clay would have prevented it. When you enjoy unexamined health privilege, you may think that someone is ill because they ate poorly, or haven’t learned a karmic lesson yet, possess stuck/suppressed emotions, lived dis-harmoniously with Nature, or lack chuztpah or spiritual willpower. And we pass judgement. In the clinic, this can disrupt the healing process. I think it can even cause harm.

Herbalists, specifically community-oriented ones, can better understand and serve our clients & communities if we examine the types of health privilege we enjoy. This way, we can be better allies and be more effective partners in the healing of people & planet by taking responsibility for our constructs of health & illness.

This article originally appeared in the Autumn 2012 issue of Plant Healer Magazine. If you haven’t subscribed to this eclectic, thoughtful, extremely original publication, I highly recommend it. Subscriptions are affordable and support the Anima Lifeways & Herbal School, one which I proudly attend. Enjoy.

I absolutely love writing outside in the Summer. In the Pacific Northwest, clear, open skies can be rare. When it’s sunny and pleasant, we are like solar panels, soaking up every available ray, letting our spirits be infused by the blooming Nootka roses, the ripening salmonberries, and the glaring, spectacular foxglove stalks. In this exalted light and heat of Summer, I have some special things I want to share with you. (And you can bet I’m writing it outside!)

In June, I completed my Master’s thesis—a culmination of a 10-month ethnography exploring the role of plant traditions in diabetes prevention and addiction treatment in Salish tribal communities. Additionally, over the last year and a half, I’ve been collaboratively running the Olympia Free Herbal Clinic (OFHC) as a member of a collective of 7 herbalists. We are presently forming a nonprofit called The Dandelion Seed Community Health Project, which will feature the free herbal clinic as one of its programs. This type of endeavor is a complex labor-of-love and juggling act, involving obtaining business licensure, organizing and recruiting a Board of Directors, managing volunteers, organizing a conference, teaching workshops, maintaining apothecary inventory, organizing a host of outreach and fundraising activities, and the list goes on. As a collective, each of us wears many hats. But we all definitely bear the title of Manager of Chaos. So I finished my thesis, graduated, and now have a bit of space to sit back, gaze at the flowers, and reflect. Specifically, I’m reflecting on the last few years of working with plant traditions to inspire social change in collaborative and community settings. It’s my desire to share these musings with you and the herbal community as a whole. I’ve learned so much from those who have walked before me, as well as those who walk with me now on this path of plants and healing.

The world of plants has inspired me since childhood, being an endless source of fascination, enchantment, and wonder. In following this allure and heeding their call, my passions have broadened. Currently, I’ve been intrigued by how plants affect social and ecological identity, and have come to understand that plant traditions are indeed an inextricable aspect of it. The network of symbiotic relationships and connections between humans and other life forms orient us in our habitat and in the cosmos. I’ve also noticed that this connection is an overlooked one in mainstream American social change and innovation practices. And that’s unfortunate, because revitalizing and creating herbal traditions and ethnobotanical practices can spur authentic and systemic social change through a variety of ways, by:

Broadening perception of place,

Inspiring self, family, and community care,

Orienting our selves as humans in time and in habitat.

Working with plant traditions (in their revitalization as well as creation) are fascinatingly paradoxical. They are simultaneously old and new, ancient and innovative. These traditions carry knowledge so ancient, vast, and are the foundation of our species biological and cultural evolution. They are also new, innovative, and deeply pertinent to the challenges of a contemporary, global society.

Plants traditions are also simultaneously simplex and complex. They can be as simple as passing down a grandmother’s cold remedy or gathering dandelions in the backyard; And yet can be as complex as articulating cultural contexts of plant practices, assessing constitution, or learning phytochemistry and pharmacology. The relationships between plants and people are so profound, complex, and encompassing. And they’re fundamental in building culture. And if we can help or facilitate the emergence of a culture of health, diversity, and resilience, countless lives can be all the more nurtured. Read more

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About Goldroot Botanical Medicine

Renee Davis MA is a researcher, educator, and product development coordinator in botanical and mycological medicine. She owns Goldroot Botanical Medicine and works for a medicinal mushroom company in Washington state. Previously, she was a clinical herbalist at the Olympia Free Herbal Clinic for 5 years and an Associate Scholar with the Center for World Indigenous Studies.